Liz Sayers

Liz’s role is the core germplasm for the Germplasm Resources Unit, which she maintains and distributes seed from our core stocks of wheat, barley, oats, peas and beans.

The collections contain a range of varieties, landraces, and wild relatives for each species and the team are able to supply this wide genetic resource for use in research, breeding, education, and even reintroduction of varieties.

Over the years, Liz has had requests for old wheat lines to try to get different tastes in bread and barley for different tasting beer. Some of our collections date back to the 1930’s and have been added to continuously over the years, so contain flavours from yesteryear.

These collections look both back and forward at the same time, finding old and new solutions to modern problems.